Audio: Rosemead woman was reportedly sitting `calmly' when man called for assistance

ROSEMEAD - A woman who was shot to death by sheriff's deputies appeared to be sitting "very calmly" in the lobby of a mental health clinic moments before her death, according to audio from a call for assistance released Tuesday.

Jazmyne Ha Eng, 40, did have a ball-peen hammer in her lap, the caller, an unidentified male, told sheriff's deputies during the Jan. 4. call for help.

Eng, a Rosemead resident with a history of mental illness, was killed by sheriff's deputies who said she was wielding the hammer over her head and screaming in the clinic's lobby when they arrived on the scene.

A spokesman with the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner said sheriff's deputies likely missed when they fired a stun gun at a mentally-ill woman before the fatal shooting.

The caller described Eng as "not immediately violent but I don't want her to get to that level." DMV records show that Eng was 4-foot-11 and just over 100 pounds.

Portions of the recording to Temple Station dispatch have been redacted.

"We have a low-level threat emergency situation," the man said during the call. "We've got a middle-aged female, small stature, sitting in our front office area who is known to us as a patient but she's refusing contact with anybody. But she's sitting there with a ball-peen hammer in her lap."

The caller also said Eng had been hospitalized for mental illness in the past and that staff members believed she was off her medication at the time. He said Eng's therapist was in the lobby with Eng, but was "trying to stand back."

The three Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies who responded to the call were from Temple Station. Another deputy assigned to the station had been involved in a shooting earlier that week.